Fragility
by Painted Lady
Summary: The battle against Darkness still rages in the Wizarding world, but how can the side of Light win when their strongest soldier is stolen? Slash.
1. Failure

Author's Note: This fanfiction is basically fragmented images that have embedded themselves rather stubbornly in my mind woven together with an incredibly weak storyline. X3 Still, I'm sure that as the story goes on, it will get stronger; that's usually the way of my writing. Let's hope, eh? D Please review at the end – it doesn't take long but it makes my day, and I'd like to know whether this is worth continuing or not. Thankyou!

FRAGILITY

The evening was quiet as death, with only the sound of the grass that groaned under the early winter's burden of frost crunching underfoot. The ethereal light spilling from the church windows illuminated patches of the wandering mist, warm candlelight colliding with the cold artificiality of the streetlamps. Dusk had only just fallen, yet the church glowed with what some would call hope, and what Harry would call a seeming smugness. Harry had never been a religious man.

"You clear?"

The bodiless voice in his ear was hushed yet comprehensible, and he cast his eyes, now adjusted to the uncanny half-light, across the churchyard. A tiny glowing amongst the mists of the headstones, standing to attention like forgotten soldiers from some war long past, betrayed the position of Ron Weasley. He replied, speaking into no mouthpiece. Magic made this particular instrument obsolete.

"As crystal. I'm going in. Send Seamus and Zacharius after the signal."

Without waiting for a reply, Harry moved swiftly out from his crouched position beneath an solitary oak into the huddled trees of the modest orchard clustered at the church's side. He paused, hidden by the many bowing and skeletal forms.

"Oh, and Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Put out the fucking cigarette."

The glowing light vanished obediently. Harry smirked slightly, and straightened, stuffing his frozen hands deep into the pockets of his heavy coat and breaking his cover in a brisk walk towards the aged wooden door. A rotting apple, nestling quietly amongst the stiff grass caught his eye, and without thinking, he kicked it, his pace lending violence to the action. The apple span away, exploded like a corpse's head.

The silence within the church's stone confines, warm and cold simultaneously, fell like a shroud over him. Nobody looked up at his intrusion. Harry, feeling suddenly incredibly present, paused for a moment to study those few worshippers that braved the cold for their faith.

A man in a waterproof coat that surely offered him no comfort, bent in prayer amidst the pews that were worn yet rich in colour. An elderly couple dressed in matching scarves and gloves, seated beside a large vase of fake flowers that even in their artificial state remained beautiful, a bible upon both laps. A young blonde woman knelt humbly before the rows of flickering candles and dressed in a funeral black veil and coat. A figure in the back, standing statue-still beneath an archway that revealed the twisted beginnings of a stone stairwell. None acknowledged Harry's rather unannounced entrance but the figure, who made a slight movement towards the stairs, then fell still once more.

Harry bent his head slightly and, eyes always on the figure, made his way calmly towards the candles, the faded carpet dulling his footsteps. As he approached, the woman dipped her head to hide her tears from him, and as always a pang of empathy twisted roughly at Harry's insides. He knew what it felt like to grieve - hell, if he had the time, energy and room inside a brain crammed with emotion, he'd never be out of black clothing. Choosing a spot far from her, Harry knelt, conscious of the lack of comfort the worn carpet offered his knees against the cold stone. Apparently staring into the candle flames that danced almost dizzily, burning blotchy replicas into Harry's vision, he could see the figure. It remained still. Harry clasped his hands, bent his head, and began to pray.

"Our Father, which art in Heaven..."

Immediately, Ron's voice started up again in his ear, loud enough for him alone to hear over his own hushed prayer.

"Checking the map now."

"...kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth..."

"Okay, confirm position and number of visible life-forms."

"...Give us this day our daily first floor, six, and forgive us our trespasses..."

"...si- ...wait a second..."

Harry dismissed the touch of concern in Ron's voice, heart thrumming with impatient adrenaline. The figure had shifted again, only subtly.

"...who trespass against us. Ron, check the first floor, now. Lead us not into temptation..."

"Okay, but- ...life forms on the first floor, one. Har-"

"But deliver us from evil. I'm going to investigate. Send them in now. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory..."

"Harry!" Ron's hiss was urgent in his ear, but the figure, as though it had heard Harry's own whispered orders, suddenly disappeared into the stairwell. The muffled thud of hurried footsteps on stone momentarily stirred the silence of the church, and was enough to spur him into action.

"Forever and ever, Amen." He breathed into his linked fingers, standing up with an abruptness that startled the cowering girl.

"HARRY!" Hoarseness had developed in Ron's strained whisper, as though he was on the brink of roaring. "Something's wrong with this, st-"

Without warning, several things happened in quick succession, the sounds hitting Harry first like bullets, faster than sight or realisation.

A muffled thud. Shouts of pain or anger. Ron's sharp "SHIT!" in his ear. A gunshot. Screams and a crash of china.

Harry whirled around, only to have his vision clouded by black cloth. Something seemingly colossal collided with him, and there was a crazy second of harsh breathing somewhere nearby before his head smashed against the stone floor, and his own strangled yell of pain joined the fray of frightened screams ricocheting off the freezing walls of the church.

One of his hands flew wildly into the air, searching blindly for his assailant as the other instinctively went for his aching head. "RON!" He yelled, hoping against hope that somehow his friend could hear, could help. He couldn't breathe, his face smothered by suffocating folds.

Suddenly there was a tightness around his throat, making him choke and yanking him upright with almost impossible force. Harry lashed out, feeling his fist connect with something solid, and all the wind was knocked out of him as his captor caught him mercilessly in the stomach in silent retaliation. His aching lungs seared as his throat was crushed tighter in the headlock of his bodiless enemy, and he scrabbled angrily against the weight with fingers that were helpless in comparison to this inhuman strength. Abruptly, the cloth was ripped from his face, and he had an accelerated impression of the empty church, fake flowers and shards of pottery scattered across the stone floor, before the old oak doors were flung open and Ron flew through them, all wide eyes and pale face.

"HARRY!"

Then there was a gun, inches from his cheek, and the sound of its shot blasted through his eardrums and buried itself in his memory. "NO!"

Ron crumpled at the doorway, blood pooling around his legs.

"NO!" Harry screamed again, and as the creature holding him slammed the weapon against his skull there was a moment of deep silence, before the pain rushed up to meet him, and he passed out.


	2. Elaboration

A/N: This is an explanation of the last chapter, which should clear a couple of your questions up. - It's strange how much I enjoyed writing from Ron's POV…

"Oh, and Ron?"

"Yeah?"

"Put out the fucking cigarette."

Ron Weasley rolled his eyes, almost involuntarily, at the terseness of his best friend's order. Obediently and aggressively, he crushed the stub of crumpled white paper and tobacco against the delicately frosted grass, and exhaled without joy. The smoke curled away on the still air, leaving its distinctive scent as an invisible tattoo. Peering through the strangely luminescent gloom, Ron could see Harry break cover, and swiftly enter the church. He shivered slightly, and pulled his collar roughly up around his freezing neck.

They had come so far together, Harry and himself, not to mention their countless friends and supporters on the side of Light. It was strange to think that a year ago, they had all huddled beneath Hogwarts' cavernous roof and mourned the death of Albus Dumbledore, thinking it the end of Light, and of any hope.

All apart from Harry.

Dumbledore's death was only the birth of a new and frightening strength in The Boy Who Lived, a resilience that was altogether inspiring and unnerving. Beneath this transformed leader, the Order of the Phoenix had become something else entirely - an army, a rebellion party, a force to be reckoned with. Secrecy was no longer a priority, and Ron, in his moments of uncertainty, often questioned whether revenge was the new fuel on which they ran. It seemed so.

Still, it couldn't be said that the Order were the weaker side. Countless Dark wizards had fallen beneath their collective wand, and the remains of their opponents had scattered to far and obscure reaches. Voldemort was still alive, a fact that fanned the fire of war within Harry to a blaze. Ron had watched him become steadily more consumed with finding the Dark Lord, denying himself sleep and food to scour through papers, interrogate countless suspects and scribble out the endless possibilities on yards of parchment. This was one such possibility - Harry had wrested from an anonymous informant that this particular church was to be used as a drop-off point for some new, twisted technology scrabbled together from what remained of Dark magic and scraps of Muggle creations.

Ron shifted in the cold, waiting for Harry's voice in his ear. His left foot was quickly going numb, and he longed for the burn of nicotine in his throat.

Destroying the Dark Charter was one of the more brilliant accomplishments of the side of Light, and essentially caused the sudden, near-fatal fall of Dark wizardry. The Charter was the object that allowed Dark magic to function with the viciousness that it had so gloried in, created thousands of year ago by nameless and cruel wizards who had first begun to warp magic beyond its amiable limitations and into something perverse.

A deeply magical creation, it had taken months to find it, and more than they were willing to give to destroy it.

Ron coughed brusquely, and extracted another cigarette from the packet with shaking hands.

At the funeral, Hermione's arm had been black with charring and melted like some gross wax figure beneath the glass of her casket. Her perfect, perfect lips had been pale, like dead rosebuds, and Ron had clung helplessly to Harry's hand as they stared down at her corpse. Her wand, splintered with the effort of ripping apart the Charter, was a stump in the burnt flesh of her right hand. Self-sacrifice had always been an unfortunate habit of hers.

"Our Father, which art in Heaven..."

Harry began to intone quietly in his ear. Ron inhaled deeply, spreading the Marauder's Map out with one hand and removing the cigarette from his mouth with the other. "Checking the map now."

The Charter's destruction had transformed the way in which Dark wizards the world over worked - with most of their magic rendered useless, Deatheaters were resorting to Muggle weaponry, enchanted with the few malicious jinxes and hexes that had been untouched by the effects of the obliteration of Dark magic. Avada Kedavra had been rendered powerless, as had incalculable other spells that caused harm and pain. Other magics, less malevolent, had also been unaccountably changed - and the Marauder's Map was one such item. Although the Order had been able to manipulate the magic within it to display surrounding areas rather than just Hogwarts, it was unable to display the names of the people in its confines, and from time to time the image flickered as though receiving poor reception.

Ron could see the blueprints of the church in spidery ink, and the smudges of people.

"Okay, confirm position and number of visible life-forms."

"...Give us this day our daily first floor, six, and forgive us our trepasses..."

Ron tapped the parchment, checking that it was displaying the first floor, and glanced over the stationary figures scattered about the sketched building. Five.

He blinked, frowned, and checked again.

"...si- ...wait a second..."

Harry must have counted wrong.

"...who tresspass against us. Ron, check the first floor, now. Lead us not into temptation..."

"Okay, but- ...life forms on the first floor, one. Har-"

"But deliver us from evil. I'm going to investigate. Send them in now. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory..."

Ron didn't know what, but something was definitely not right. If someone Harry could see was not appearing on the map, it meant that they did not want to be seen. "Harry!" He hissed, spurring his frozen legs into action and weaving drunkenly towards the back of the church, where Seamus and Zacharius were lying hidden to provide back-up.

"Forever and ever, Amen." There was a tone of finality in his oblivious friend's whisper, and Ron had to restrain himself from screaming.

"HARRY!"

He could see the dark, blurred outlines of his two comrades, crouched low in the shadows. He started towards them, dropping the lit cigarette and speaking urgently as he went, "Something's wrong with this, st-"

Ron saw the falling figure before he could finish the sentence. Black robes billowing, it seemed to him like a massive bird of prey, swooping down onto Zacharius and Seamus as if they were helpless, fragile mice. Voice frozen in his throat, he watched soundlessly as the person jumped - for it was undoubtedly a jump, not a fall - from the church tower's tiny stone window, onto the men below. The life form on the first floor.

With the sickening thud, the figure landed, and Seamus' roar of pain forced Ron into action. He ran at the struggling tangle of robes, just as another stranger, similarly dressed, launched himself from the same window and tackled a winded Zacharius.

An ambush. "SHIT!" Ron swore heatedly, fumbling for his wand as he saw Seamus lifted into the air and thrown impossibly far across the dim church grounds. Then utter horror struck, filling his insides with a coldness. Harry.

A gunshot resounded from inside the church, and Ron felt as though he were about to pass out. Zacharius, who was battling one of the inhumanly strong robed figures, managed to gasp at him, "RON, GET HARRY!" His face was ashen; clearly the same thought had occurred to him as to the redhead.

Ron didn't pause to think. In these situations, Harry mattered most. It was an unspoken rule.

He wheeled around, and sprinted, dodging gravestones and collapsed fences.

"RON!" Harry yelled in his ear, and he almost killed himself practically flying across the rest of the grounds, into the huge, heavy doors. His heart was pounding somewhere in his throat, choking him.

And suddenly he could see his best friend, fighting for breath as yet another black-clad figure held him aloft with a cruel, gloved hand. It dimly entered Ron's frantic mind that that this creature could not be human, its strength was so effortlessly immense. "HARRY!" The name practically spilled out of him as his desperate eyes fixed on the panicked face of The Boy Who Lived.

Then Harry's captor drew a gun, and searing pain shot through Ron's thigh as the bone there splintered.

He fell in what felt like slow motion, Harry's screams resounding in his rapidly deafened ears, and one thought occurred in his fuzzy, blackening brain - 'I've lost him.' 


	3. Weakness

A/N: Yet another obscure chapter! Once again, there will be things in this that are unclear, but 9 times out of 10 that's done on purpose. nn Getting the characterisation in this chapter was hard, so I apologise in advance for that. Aside from that, hopefully everything will be dandy. Enjoy!

Slowly, ever so slowly, blurred outlines trickled into Harry's consciousness until he blinked them away like tears. His vision swam, shades of shadow and the occasional artificial light shuddering before his eyes.

The soft rumble of movement shivering through his body told him that he was in a car, and the smooth blackness of leather against his cheek told him that it was an expensive one. Harry blinked again. His skull was aching.

A crushing hand tightened around his bicep, and Harry's defensive instinct kicked in so that he wrenched away as if on autopilot.

"Hold him."

A robed figure on either side of him pinned him against the cool carseat, unrelenting as Harry struggled sluggishly. Groping fingers grabbed a fistful of his hair, yanking his face upward painfully.

Reclining on the stretch of leather opposite was yet another shadowy figure, body language a picture of boredom. The Hummer took a corner smoothly, and a glowing streetlamp bobbed past long enough to illuminate the stranger's face.

Harry stared indifferently at his amused captor. No wonder he'd mistaken him for a woman - his blonde hair gleamed as it spilled out of the confines of his hood.

"So sorry about all this," Malfoy drawled, lips twisted in a characteristic smirk. The half-light of the streetlamps hit the angles of his hollowed face, so that he appeared skeletal.

Harry remained silent. The bulky figure to his left still had his hair in a vice-like grip, jutting his chin out and exposing the vulnerable flesh of his throat. He was painfully aware of it.

Draco Malfoy chuckled darkly, and slipped a slim silver case out from beneath the seat, his grey eyes never leaving Harry's tense face. He brushed the hood back with long, gloved fingers and Harry found his mouth twisting into a grimace of dislike as he surveyed his boyhood enemy. He should have finished the bastard off when he had the chance, when he was weak and any power he did have was in the classroom alone.

"Your face will stick that way, Potter," Draco said lazily, unclipping the case and beginning to attend to its contents.

Harry glared acidly back at his reflection in the sheen of the case's surface. Then he cast his eyes around the interior of the car, around the black leather and cloaked figures, trying to form some kind of plausible escape route in his mind. Maybe...maybe if he took them by surprise, pulled away from them and opened the car door before they could grab a hold of him? Harry winced internally. It wasn't the best idea he'd ever had - he would be falling out of a speeding vehicle, hitting tarmac at around 80mph, but anything was better than this. Harry took a breath and chanced a subtle shift of his shoulders, checking the guards' attentiveness.

It was a mistake; the fist at his neck brought his face down brutally onto his own kneecaps, and Harry felt his nose blossom with blood as his glasses clattered off his face and onto the rumbling car floor. The guard wrenched Harry's head upward again with a sickening click of his neck, and he could feel tears of pain blur momentarily in his eyes as Malfoy's face swam before them.

"Tut tut, Potter. I was expecting more of you," he purred, before taking Harry's jawbone between the elegant gloved fingers of one hand. Harry could taste the coppery tang of his own blood.

"Surely you know when you're beaten?" Draco inquired, staring earnestly into Harry's blurred eyes.

Then Harry felt the needle in his throat, pushing determinedly and painfully into his veins. He gave an involuntary gasp of horror, and tried to yank away from Malfoy's iron grip, away from the other hand wielding the syringe. Draco dug his fingertips into Harry's skin, leaving deep red marks, and hissed viciously into his ear, "Potter, don't be stupid. I have a hyperdermic needle in your neck."

Harry felt Draco's hot breath on his skin, felt the foreign intrusion of metal in his flesh, felt liquid seeping into his bloodstream. Nausea crept up to meet him.

Malfoy removed the empy syringe from Harry's throat, where the vein was raised in an angry bruise-blue against the pale skin, and Harry slumped forward and began to gag drily, coughing as his stomach tried to vomit up food he hadn't eaten.

Draco ignored this, disposing of the needle in a plastic bag and leaning back to admire his handiwork. The guards either side of Harry had released him tentatively, and Malfoy addressed them softly, and without holding either of their gazes.

"Vincent. Blaise. I think it is best that you leave Potter and I."

Harry was still slumped like a failed, stringless puppet, gulping raggedly as he battled to breath.

"I'll see you at the site." Draco continued quietly, watching the ex-Gryffindor.

There was silence for a moment, then both the hooded figures Disapparated with a crack like a whip.

Harry's hands were trembling violently as he clawed frantically at his throat, pale fingers scrabbling across the raised veins. Unruffled, Draco opened the tinted window a fraction to allow a teasing blast of cool night air to mingle with the heavy dryness within the car, and stared out of the glass at the passing world.

"I won't lie to you, Potter."

The blonde's voice was brusque, but Harry made no reply but a shuddering breath.

"This will not be the first time you experience this...unpleasantness."

Harry struggled to focus with watering eyes on Malfoy's face, but everything was lurching sickeningly. His head was pounding nearly beyond endurance, his limbs were leaden, his stomach churning. Blood was seeping into his dry mouth, his throat was rapidly closing up. The world darkened and then became unbearably light, as though someone were playing with a light-switch, as he passed in and out of consciousness. Sweat trickled from his brow, mingling with the blood and making him wretch painfully again with a muted, agonized scream.

Impatiently, Draco shifted so that he now sat beside the convulsing ex-Gryffindor on the bloodstained leather. More roughly than was absolutely necessary, he grabbed Harry by a shaking shoulder and forced him to rest his head on Draco's own robed lap. The dark-haired man twitched in response.

Tense with annoyance, Draco snapped, "Compose yourself, Potter." Harry was still clutching his throat, balled up with pain with his boiling face sticking to the material of Malfoy's robes.

"What have...what...?" Blood sprayed from his sticky lips as he summoned his strength to speak.

Draco had his eyes closed, a faint line of irritation between his eyebrows, like someone who is having trouble sleeping. "It's not poison, Potter," He supplied wearily, absent-mindedly stroking the hair from Harry's sweaty forehead. "You're not dying, although you feel like it."

"I'm...going to k-...kill you..." Harry hissed from between bloodstained teeth.

"Is that so?" Draco sounded amused.

"I...s-swear...to God..."

Draco placed two gloved fingers beneath the bloodied chin on his lap, turning Harry's face toward his own with a practiced ease that comes of the incredibly powerful. The Boy Who Lived's famous eyes were wild and clouded, unfocused and full of angry, pained tears. They looked like leaves submerged beneath stirred water.

"Play nice, Potter."

Boredly, he released Harry's face and pushed the man's limp body, hard, from his lap. The ex-Gryffindor crumpled on the floor at Draco's feet and was silent.

Draco lit a cigarette. 


	4. Humilation

A/N: I'm glad everyone's not completely lost, because I can understand how everything is incredibly fuzzy at the mo - I'm not entirely sure where I'm going yet myself. - Let's hope for the best.

x

The sleek, monstrous car had left civilisation at some point in the early night, as dusk's watery blues bled into a deeper, velvet black. Stars, like sprays of mercury, timidly appeared in the sky's suffocating folds, only just visible between the searching and bony fingers of stripped trees. The terrain was rough and treacherous, flat land suddenly bucking into unexpected, looming hills. Loose rubble flicked up against the flawless black exterior of the Hummer, leaving stark silver scars, and rebellious sprigs of dull heather were trampled beneath the tires.

Suddenly, the rocky hill petered out into a flat crescent, still flanked by raw, thorny foliage. The dim ruby of the brake-lights glowed in an otherwise monochrome night.

Draco Malfoy opened the door brusquely with one gloved hand; the other clutched the neck of an unconscious Harry's robes. The brunette's limp body was abandoned on the ground, neck twisted unnaturally, skin tinted with blue.

"Leave. Now." Draco shot at the driver behind the dark glass. "If Potter's lackeys are indeed tracking us, they'll know we've stopped."

Obediently, the Hummer took a skillful and speedy U-turn and barreled off into the dark.

Harry shifted fractionally, and Draco glanced at him with no concern.

"Looks like it's you and me for a little while, Potter." He grinned sardonically. "Walkies."

x

It was the erratic rocking movement that prompted Harry's consciousness. Opening his eyes blearily, the first thing he saw was the crumbling earth beneath him, and the sound of Draco's feet crunching against the gravelly soil was loud in his exhausted brain.

His breathing was restricted. Harry's aching eyes darted around, and he realised with a thrill of horror that he was slung, like a dead fox, over Malfoy's shoulder.

As though responding to Harry's silent realisation, the blonde roughly shifted the weight of the slumped body on his back with a jerking movement as he continued, machine-like, to climb the hill. Harry could hear the slight shallowness of Draco's breathing; not nearly as laboured a breath as carrying an unconscious man uphill required. His own heartbeat began to accelerate painfully, adrenaline surging through him.

It was just him and Malfoy. Wildly, he searched the surrounding moors with his stare, willing his head to remain still. If Malfoy realised that he was awake, catching him off guard would be next to impossible.

Nobody. Just a slightly out of breath blonde carrying a silent brunette up a path surrounded by coarse heather and weather-beaten ferns.

Harry lay perfectly still, waiting.

The night breeze stirred his hair a little. The air was cool; he could feel the exposed flesh at the nape of his neck and along his forearms begin to prickle gently. It smelt fresh, like snow.

Draco paused, perched precariously on an uneven cluster of mossy rock.

Immediately, Harry lashed out wildly at the back of Draco's neck, putting all his fury into the blow. For a split second, he thought he'd been successful - his captor seemed to crumple momentarily - but then he felt an iron cold grip close on his exposed wrist. Suddenly and impossibly, Harry was flipped, was flying into the air, thudding heart leaping painfully in his mouth.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Just as suddenly, he froze, hanging suspended in the cool dusk.

"Oh, yes..." Draco's chuckle was dark, smooth and bitter as coffee. He twirled his outstretched wand between thin, gloved fingertips, regarding Harry's absurdly petrified body as it floated above the ground. The blood was rushing to Harry's head, flushing his face a blotchy purple. "Yes, I thought we might have been soft on you."

Had he the physical ability to respond, rather than to dangle helplessly with his limbs mid-flail, Harry wouldn't have.

"Of course," Draco continued casually, enjoying Harry's forced silence, "The Chosen One would thwart our plan, would fight the effects of the serum. But then..." He grinned, lazily and cruelly. "I suppose that is why you are crucial to our plan. Your...extreme nature."

Harry's mind raced beneath his frozen expression. It was rapidly becoming evident that his entire kidnapping was perhaps more than a mere hostage situation.

Draco strolled slowly past him, the wind stirring his silver hair and the watching ferns, until he was out of sight. The only thing Harry could see now was the vast emptiness of the dark, cold moors.

"Luckily," Harry heard the quiet drawl behind him, "your old friend Draco brings spares."

A feeling of terror rose uncontrollably like bile in Harry as the needle pierced the flesh of his neck once more, and the hellish sickness overwhelmed him.

x

The crumbling old mansion was surprising; it rose suddenly, like a hunchbacked corpse, from the heather-clad scrub of the moors, all eroded turrets and swarthes of comforting, dark-green ivy. The stone it was comprised of gleamed like brushed steel in the moonlight, so that it seemed to glow like a beacon despite its gothic hostility. The spells and charms placed on it to make the looming lump of stone and foliage invisible to Muggles and unplottable to wizards were barely visible, shimmering like a soap bubble.

Within its cold walls, Draco had disposed of Harry's lolling and unconscious form, donating it to a couple of Death-eaters with strict instructions. They had dipped their heads in respect, and dragged the blue-tinted body away.

Now he sat in a cavernous study with a domed ceiling and walls that were paneled with quietly rotting mahogany. Books filled with dust and magic long-forgotten nestled in the shelves, their leather covers once jewel-bright, now faded and falling apart. The dangling chandelier, its glass beads cracked and encrusted with dirt, was supplied only with mutilated stumps of wax for candles, and so remained dark and unused. Instead, a fire roared mutinously in the monstrous fireplace, sending patterns of light across Draco's chair, which was made of skeletal wood and worn velvet.

Without warning, the fire suddenly exploded with violet flames - the colour of an illegal transportation - and Draco stood almost instantaneously as Lord Voldemort stepped from the licking, hissing confines of the stone fireplace.

The Dark Lord seemed to shrink the room, such was his black and commanding presence. The infamous, snake-like face was hidden beneath a hood, but the thin white hands protruded from the liquid-like folds of cloak as he swept into the cold study. Draco dropped to one knee as expected, blonde hair falling into his face as his head dipped.

"My lord."

"I trust," Voldemort's voice was thin and sharp as a rapier, "that the plan was carried out accordingly."

Draco stood, his head still bowed slightly in reverence.

"It was, my lord. Potter is being secured as we speak."

"Have security checks been carried out to ensure that you were not followed?"

"They have. Potter's associates immediately Disapparated to the Ministry, and have not left, if our trackers are correct."

The Dark Lord paced slowly, apparently deep in thought. When he next spoke, there was a bite of a smile in his voice.

"Well done, Draco. It is most imperative that Potter's medication is applied flawlessly; we cannot afford to take any risks. Ensure that his mental state is entirely broken before we begin the next stage of treatment."

"I shall oversee the entire proceedings, my lord."

Lord Voldemort paused, and the fire glinted in his eyes, still masked by the cloak.

"I shall assume, of course, that your own medication is still being taken, Draco?"

The blonde fixed Voldemort with a piercing stare, that from a lesser man would have smacked of disrespect. "Of course, my lord. I understand fully the importance of my role."

The cloaked man smirked beneath his hood, and it was apparent in his voice, "Yes...I should not have doubted you, Draco. You are, of course, my most successful experiment."

Draco bowed his head again.

"I suppose," Voldemort continued, "that in a way, you are the only wizard alive that possesses anything close to my...rather unique gift. Death is, to us, simply another opponent to overcome."

Draco was silent. Voldemort turned, suddenly, and in one jerky motion of his pale hand threw a handful of powder into the flame. The flame turned deep emerald, and then abruptly flickered like a faulty television screen, until it glowed violet.

"I shall be checking on your progress regularly, Draco." Voldemort said simply, striding towards the beckoning fire. "And do not forget the consequences of failure."

"Never, my lord."

x

"A room with a view; you lucky bastard, Potter."

Harry did not answer, and Draco did not expect him to. He'd apparently been silent for hours now.

The arched, grimy windows did indeed open out onto the unravelling moors, which were now shrouded in darkness and fingers of moonshine. Draco wandered casually over to them, clasping a wrought iron goblet of red wine in one cold hand and dragging the heavy velvet curtains across the window panes with the other. The room immediately fell into still darkness. Draco could hear Harry's faint breathing quicken across the room.

Draco, unaffected by the pitch black of the room, took a sip of wine thoughtfully and listened to Harry's ragged breaths. The brunette was not unconscious, simply refusing to communicate. Since Draco's brief consultation with the Dark Lord, Harry had woken to find himself in a cold and aged room, hung with dozens of cracked and spotted mirrors. From gilt, iron and glass frames in all shapes and sizes they stared at him, reflecting his own haggard and frightened face. He watched himself struggle at the unforgiving chains that fastened him to the posts of the magnificent bed, which was strewn with freezing sheets and silver velvet curtains. He watched his own wrists begin to bleed as he wrestled them raw to no avail. He watched the Death Eaters that came in clinical couples to enjoy the sight of him, silently spread-eagled on the thin sheets with a stomach that clenched in terror every time the mysterious serum to which he was subject was mentioned. And now he could see nothing.

The blonde sauntered casually towards the bed, which he had no trouble seeing despite the gloom. He heard Harry's breath hitch slightly as he set the wine-filled goblet down loudly on the ebony cabinet beside the bed, and sat comfortably on the lumpy mattress, somewhere near Harry's waist. The chains clinked softly as Draco shifted contentedly on the bed's edge.

"So, Potter. Are you going to talk to me?"

Silence. Draco listened to Harry's breathing, which was determinedly calm, and the muffled thud of his heartbeat, which was anything but.

"No?"

Silence. Draco could see Harry's pale face through the dark. His eyes were darting to and fro, trying to discern Draco's whereabouts in the blackness. Slowly, he felt within the folds of his own cloak, until his fingers found a cold wad of metal - a Zippo lighter. He withdrew it and flicked it open, clicking it to life. The sudden flare of light made Harry flinch away instinctively, resulting in Draco's smirk.

"Touchy little thing, aren't you?"

Harry's jaw tightened. The flame's light highlighted the angles of his face, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the vulnerable blue veins raised on his neck. Draco found them oddly appealing.

"What are you doing to me?" Harry's voice was stiff, cracked with the effort of speaking.

Draco paused, and let go of the lighter, which remained hovering in mid-air. "What are we doing?" He repeated.

"Yes. Why don't you just kill me?" Harry was impatient; his voice was tight, strangled.

Draco shifted again on the bed, and Harry's eyes glanced down from where they had been fixed firmly on the canopy of the four-poster.

"Because, Potter, there is no sense in letting you go to waste."

"Oh, for fuck's SAKE, Malfoy --" Harry's sentence was cut off as he broke into painful coughing. His throat was obviously damaged.

Draco made a face that was half grimace, half grin, and reached out for the goblet of wine.

"You can cut that out right now, boy."

Carefully, he took Harry's face in one hand, and tipped some of the deep red liquid into Harry's mouth. The first few mouthfuls Harry simply coughed back out, spraying wine over his own face, staining his lips and the pale bedsheets. After a while, however, he swallowed, his throat convulsing with the effort.

Satisfied, Draco allowed him to catch his breath, wiping wine off his own hand with the sheets.

"As I was saying. You, Potter, are too good to waste, because you happen to be a source of great power. Not skill, and certainly not sense, but there is raw magical power there. And we believe that we can harness it."

Harry closed his eyes, and did not respond. There were tiny drops of wine caught in his eyelashes, and a tiny burgundy river was tracing its way slowly down his chin and onto his throat.

"Not," Draco smirked cruelly, "that you look particularly powerful at the moment."

"Leave me alone." Harry snarled instantly, without opening his eyes. His cheeks had flushed in anger and humiliation.

"Harry, Harry..." Draco tutted in mock pity, "you didn't honestly think I was only here for a chat, did you?"

Harry tensed visibly. He could hear the ebony cabinet being opened, could feel his heartbeat begin to lurch in fear, opened his eyes to see Draco finish assembling the damned syringe. He thought he might vomit any moment.

"This," murmured Draco, as he slid the needle into Harry's wine-stained throat, "won't hurt a bit."

He left Harry arching and screaming on the bed.  
x

A/N: Gahhh, I hate this friggin' story! Please please tell me if you're confused beyond all belief, and I'll try and make things a bit simpler. Also, how hard did I have to reign in the HxD Lemon Monster in the last scene? Pretty darn hard, I can tell you. ;D 


	5. Frustration

A/N: Thankyou all so much for your kindness - I really appreciate feedback, whether it be positive or not. :D I'm currently working on a gazillion and one different ideas (my lust for writing slash appears to have come back in full swing), but I'm determined to get a little further with this story, despite our differences. XD R+R, you darling things! 

x

Thirteen days.

Ron stared listlessly at the calendar, with eyes that itched with tiredness and sported bruise-dark circles.

Thirteen days since Harry had been snatched, leaving no trace and sending the Ministry of Magic into utter frenzy. Understandably, of course - to have the chosen exacter of Lord Voldemort's fate and their Golden Boy to boot stolen with apparent and great ease was disruptive, to say the least.

With a wrenching sigh, Ron pulled his reports towards him; the parchment was crumpled, well-leafed. The redhead had spent endless hours reading, and checking, and double-checking, and hoping that this time, the copies could show him something other than his failure to protect his friend. Roughly, he scanned a page, and almost threw it aside in careless frustration. It fluttered poignantly to the floor of his office so that the writing, blotchy with hot and helpless tears, could not be seen.

"Ron?"

The aforementioned flinched in surprise, and swivelled in his chair to see Ginny, looking pale with worry.

"Oh, it's you," he said unenthusiastically, and feeling guilty for it.

"Ron," she said soothingly, stepping forward to lay a cool, logical hand on his shoulder, "It's late. You should have left the Ministry hours ago."

Ron stifled the burning sensation in his throat to shout. "I can't," he said bluntly.

Ginny's face twisted with concern. "Look, there's nothing else you can do at the moment." Ron went to contradict her, but she barrelled on, "We have dozens of men on this case, and all you can do is analyse everything they bring to you. And soon, they'll bring the right thing."

Ron dipped his head, and remained silent. After all, what could he say? Confess his feelings of helplessness? Of guilt? His fear that it was too late?

Brother and sister lingered for a while, quiet in their grief and anxiety, Ginny absent-mindedly rubbing comforting circles on Ron's tense shoulder. Suddenly, without ceremony, Seamus burst into the office.

"Quick," he panted roughly, "they've found someone."

x

"Given him the Veritaserum?"

The small group, composed of Tonks, Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Hannah Abbott and Dean Thomas, dispersed in surprise as Ron shouldered himself into their midst with Ginny at his heels.

"Just now," Tonks replied, glancing at their captive. The Death Eater was burly, but his eyes were dark with twisted intelligence. He looked gaunt, more corpse than man. For a moment, his ragged breathing as he weakly struggled against his bonds was the only sound that broke the tense silence.

"Flint," Kingsley began sharply, and the Death Eater looked up immediately, limbs falling still with resignation as the potion's effect manifested itself in his bloodstream.

"Yes." His voice was monotone.

Kingsley made to continue, but suddenly Ron was holding Flint's skull as though to crush it, staring with a burning resentment and anger at the hooded man.

"Where," he asked, and his voice was trembling with uncontrollable fury, "is my friend?" Flint was silent for a split-second; Ron, overwhelmed, shook him hard like a ragdoll. "WHERE IS HE?!!" He screamed, and Ginny looked away to conceal her anguished tears.

"He is in the moor lands," Flint answered, without emotion.

"We know that," Dean said gruffly, as Hannah Abbott slid a comforting arm into the crook of Ginny's elbow. "Give us a precise location."

"I can't," came the reply, "I do not know it."

"Is Harry alive?" Ron spat, not releasing his grip. Flint looked back at him blankly.

"Yes."

"Why? What do you hope to gain?" Kingsley's voice was suspicious.

"We are experimenting on him."

"Oh God," whispered Tonks.

"What exactly are you doing to him?" Ron growled from between clenched teeth, the muscles in his jaw tense.

"The Dark Lord intends to harness his power, and use him as a weapon."

Silence followed this bald statement.

"What?" said Ron, disbelievingly, just as Hannah demanded, "How?"

"A band of the Dark Lord's followers have successfully magically enhanced Muggle human performance serum. Potter's senses and reactions will become greatly heightened, as will his strength, speed and endurance. He will become increasingly difficult to kill."

"Harry would never work for him," Ginny hissed, incredulously.

"The Dark Lord is, of course, aware of this. According to reports, Potter is currently being subjected to another serum, which affects his mental state through pain, eventually resulting in loss of memories and rational thought. He will become a slave to the Dark Lord's bidding."

Here, Flint's slaw jaw formed a lop-sided, mocking grin. Unable to help himself, Ron smashed the side of the Death Eater's face with a shaking fist, and Flint's nose exploded in a spray of scarlet. Dean and Kingsley wrestled Ron away, whilst the captive man sat with blood dripping from his face onto the carpet.

"Are there others?" Tonks asked quickly, "is You-Know-Who forming an army?"

"He has tested the serums on selected Death Eaters. Many died. Others were successful - one Death Eater in particular. However, once Potter has been fully treated, he shall become the Dark Lord's most powerful weapon." Flint's drone was thick with blood.

"But," Dean sounded confused, "why would You-Know-Who want to make Harry so strong? Surely he'd just want to make him weaker, so that he could...uh, finish him off?"

Flint smiled again with blood-stained teeth. "The Dark Lord is no stranger to irony."

Ron flinched away from Kingsley's grasp , touchy with barely controlled anger. Ginny watched him warily and with white knuckles. The room was dense with tension, its presence like a choking gas.

"Who knows were Harry is being kept?" Hannah asked eventually, and Flint took a breath that was shuddery with mucus, before spitting out a few names. Tonks had conjured a quick quotes quill, which flashed acid-green as it scribbled the names that Flint so reluctantly gave.

"Right," said Ron tersely, making a snap decision, "Send him to Azkaban, and make sure they know we'll probably need him for more questioning."

"Where are you going?" Ginny's voice was steely.

"To find those fuckers."

x

Draco's tongue was black. Absent-mindedly, he had been sucking the nib of his quill, and the ink tasted almost coppery, like blood. He surveyed the reports on Potter's progress without particular feeling. The spidery writing seemed to dance in the light of the fire, which was licking the study's hearth.

Without warning, muffled screams began somewhere far away. Draco barely glanced up. Yes, Potter's reports were full of screams; apparently they varied between those of terror, pain and anger. He paused momentarily to listen to Harry, chained within his mirrored prison, and decided that these were screams were of pain.

Shuffling the papers disinterestedly, Draco scanned the remainder of the reports. It was a shame he had not been present to witness these occurrences himself, he thought mildly; it was clear from the erratic nature of Potter's reactions that the serum was beginning to take desired effect. Two days ago, he'd apparently began fitting rather spectacularly. Sometimes, he shivered noiselessly and uncontrollably, huddling into the foetal position. Others, he screamed obscenities until his throat bled. Occasionally, Potter would begin to babble nonsensically, speaking of fictional names and places (his temporary minders had run fact checks to be sure he was not spilling potentially useful secrets). Mostly, though, he lay silent and stoic, sticky with his own perspiration.

The screams were seeming to subside slightly. Draco settled momentarily in the faded velvet armchair, feeling the warmth of the flames on his fingertips like dry, hot lips.

Maybe it was time to pay Potter a visit.

x

Harry's wrists were black. Congealed blood often looks black, when not washed away by merciful water. There were wine-dark stains on the prisoner's forearms, and the deathly pale translucence of his skin made Harry look like a corpse. He was refusing to eat; his ribs stuck out defiantly.

Draco observed him silently; today, Potter was half-curled, restrained by the chains. He watched the beads of cold sweat form on the shuddering body of The Boy Who Lived, and watched as they ran, disturbed, down over the satisfyingly regular bumps of his spine.

"Potter."

The captive twitched in response. The chains clinked softly in reply.

"Face me." Draco's voice was commanding, but neutral.

Silence, but Potter's defiance was numbed by the way he was now trembling with apparent fear. Unreasonably, it irritated Draco no end.

Tensing his jaw, he stepped smartly around the bed, and regarded Harry's face. It was devoid of colour, but for the blue of his deadening lips and the green of his glassy eyes. They were full of tears. Draco felt like hitting him.

Harry tried to flinch weakly away from him, unsuccessfully. His ruined wrists twisted in their chains.

"Are you frightened of me, Potter?" Draco asked quietly.

"Yes," Harry breathed.

With a sudden, jerky movement, Draco smashed him around the face, and the chains clanked angrily as Harry flailed.

"Don't hurt me anymore I'm innocent I've done nothing it hurts it hurts oh God," he babbled through his sobs, temporary insanity lilting his disconnected words.

"Shut up," Draco spat, hot with sudden and unexplained rage. "Shut up."

"It hurts it hurts," Harry whimpered, chest heaving as the tears ran down his emaciated cheeks.

Draco placed a palm squarely on Potter's ribs, and pushed, hard. Harry went to scream, but was silenced as in one fluid motion, Draco swung his leg over his jutting hipbone, straddling him, pulled out his gun, cocked it, and aimed directly at Harry's head.

"Shut up, Potter," he said deliberately, in a voice of forced calm, "or I shall put a bullet in your fucking brain."

Draco could feel the weak body beneath him shaking helplessly, but ignored it. Potter's wide, mad eyes were staring down into the hypnotic blackness of the gun's barrel, lips moving soundlessly. The seconds stretched.

"Please," Harry whispered, and the word felt like a slap around Draco's face. Without thinking, he aimed at Harry's frightened eyes and pulled the trigger.

Harry's body bucked automatically beneath him, and Draco watched in rapt fascination as his terrified expression cracked in the mirror where the bullet had struck, and shattered into a thousand silver splinters.

For a split second, the sound of broken glass like rain filled the silence. Then Potter, or this weak imitation of him, burst into broken, desperate tears.

Draco dropped the gun. It clattered away.

Inexplicably, he tried to gather Potter's crumpled body into his arms. The chains strained. Harry gasped harshly, choking through his tears, "Ow, ow..."

Draco touched the chain with freezing fingers, and more chain appeared between them as he muttered a lengthening spell in a voice like dead leaves.

Harry's eyes were bloodshot, crimson tributaries running into a bottle green lake. Still he cried, helpless.

The blonde crushed him gently to his robed chest, face blank, and Harry coughed words into Draco's bony shoulder, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I can't help it, I can't..."

"I know," said Draco, deadpan and dead-eyed.

Hours seemed to pass, with a softly moaning Potter in his arms, and a slice of ice where his feelings should be. Draco got pins and needles in his left foot.

Then the moans began to change. They strengthened, doubled in volume, and suddenly Harry was in his face, screaming. Draco jerked back instinctively, and Harry lunged for him, roaring like an incensed animal, clawing with nails that were bloodstained to the quick.

The ice melted, and Draco felt the rage return in full flame.

Harry struggled madly against his bonds, fresh blood appearing in a brilliant flash of red. His screams were as nonsensical as his babbling, and his tear-stained face was contorted with rage.

"DON'T - EVER - FUCKING - MALFOY - KILL - BEG - YOU THINK -!"

Draco laughed.

The chains creaked dangerously as Harry hurled himself against them, twisting wildly, screaming and swearing.

"KILL - YOU! I SWEAR -!"

Draco's mouth was twisted in a grin, but there was a coldness in his stomach now. This was the second time that Potter had expressed this particular sentiment, and it wasn't welcome.

"I'LL MAKE YOU BEG!" Harry's voice was a guttural rumble, his teeth bared like a feral animal. "BEG - CHOKE! I- !"

"Potter," Draco began, his own tone inflected with schoolboy taut, "if I released you from those chains, I could crush you. Like a worm. An insect." He bit down hard on the last word.

"COWARD! DON'T - " The chains shrieked their protest, but failed to drown out Harry's incensed roars.

Draco lunged, and the adrenaline that coursed through his veins was sweet. There was a terrible heat in him that wanted to obliterate Potter, this screaming, snivelling wreck that so often blundered, unwitting and unfeeling, into his path. His hand came down, cold and hard as iron, on Harry's throat, pinning him to the headboard with such force that blood burst stickily from the prisoner's lips.

"You ought to see your face," he sneered, right into Harry's blood-filled mouth, hating him with eyes like coals, "when I bring out that needle. You look like you want to die, Potter. Well, too-" He slammed Harry's ragdoll head into the board, hard, for emphasis on every word, "fucking - BAD!"

Harry coughed, and Draco tasted the coppery tang of him enemy on his lips. Automatically, he licked away the red, metallic residue. The flavour of it made his body ache.

Time inexplicably slowed, its fluidity resumed, and the silence was broken only by harsh breathing.

"Leave- " Potter's lips moved numbly, the initial flame of his hatred burnt down to the crumbling cinders of a resigned bitterness. Draco resisted the animalistic urge to suck the stains from his mouth.

"Fuck it, Potter," he hissed, unpeeling his fingers from where they rested in an iron grip against Harry's windpipe, "why won't you just die?"

That night, it took six bottles of Firewhisky to wash the taste of blood from his mouth.

x

A/N: Few words to say. Firstly, I'm having mixed feelings about 'Fragility,' but I'm pretty sure that's because it's so unsatisfactory compared to my songfic 'Lilac Wine' (if you haven't read that, please please do. It's one of the best things I've ever written, if I do say so myself). However, I've still got a couple of ideas, so I'll try and soldier on with this little ditty. :D ALSO, I was a little high off anti-allergy drugs at this time of writing the last passage, so apologies if it is completely nonsensical. Lastly, thankye muchly for reading, folks.


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